Written in
by Tega Drake
Summary: Little story bits I've written for BBC's Sherlock. I've been doing a serious amount of playing with the characters, so I just tend to write about them or with them in mind. Either way, this is a collection of one-shots. M rating just in case I go further with visuals or possibly relationships. Who knows.
1. LightDark

Title: Light/Dark

Words: 747

Spoilers: A Study in Pink only

TW: Drug use, blood, mentioned nudity

Posted on Tumblr for a Johnlock Exchange challenge. ageofzero . tumblr post/ 36947998347/ too-fucking-lazy-to-type-right-now-but-yeah-i

* * *

When he takes drugs (the kind that make life interesting and dangerous), Sherlock manages to dream. Most of it is colour and insanity, to combat the strict order from his memories that he tries to escape. The order that shapes like Mycroft and colours a dull orange. His mind is chaos, rage and stircrazy and restless. As such, he moves deeper in his dreams, past memory and colour. The deeper he goes (the more drug he intakes), the closer he gets to the darkness. That would be fine with him. The darkness is something interesting and new and he can't see to the bottom of it. It just begs to be explored.

That would be fine, but he never reaches that point. A bright, quite blinding light takes hold of him. The light smells of blood, a lot of blood. His eyes are always blind to the light, but he can feel it on his face, gripping by the wrist and pulling him from the darkness. He usually wakes up as he's pulled away. He wakes up with the last tendrils of his high fading away, but never wakes up in darkness.

One day, he intentionally overdoses. The darkness meets him and tries to swallow him the moment his eyes close in reality, and the darkness swallows his eyes first in the dream. But again, the light grabs him by the arm and pulls. Its other hand brushes lightly on his cheek, and clears his sight. It pulls him away, back into colour, and they stand on even ground, finally. They stand on something, and Sherlock finally gets to look at the light as its intensity fades and takes the shape of a man. At least, the shape is masculine; the light doesn't come with genitals, so he decides that gender doesn't honestly matter much in the dream. The blood comes from a wound in his shoulder, that looks suspiciously like a bullet wound. Sherlock looks further down, and sees one leg is marked up oddly. He supposes they're supposed to look like scars, but they have no texture to them, and they're smudged oddly. He doesn't have the mental capacity to figure out what it means, but then, he gets distracted by the fact that the light is talking to him in a warm voice.

"_You're supposed to wake up_." The light says, worried. "_What did you do?_"

"Overdosed, most likely." Sherlock replies. His voice feels distorted as he realises that he's still there because his body cannot wake up. "What's your name?"

"_What's yours?_" The light asks in return.

"You've been rescuing me, so you think. You should know my name."

"_I don't, though. Don't need to know someone's name to want to help them. Besides, I'm not exactly sure of mine. Everything's hazy, here._" He smiles up at Sherlock.

"You're bleeding."

"_Yeah, every time._" They both look at his wounded shoulder, and watch for a few seconds as it bleeds slowly. Sherlock is intrigued, but the light was resigned. "_Doesn't hurt_."

"Are you an angel?"

"_Do you believe in angels?_"

"No."

"_Then I'm obviously not an angel._" His smile brightens up the space around them, and Sherlock can see colours clearer than he could before. But when he looks again, the smile is a sad one. "_You won't remember me, or this._"

"Nonsense." Sherlock manages a scoff at the thought.

"_You won't. I know. Don't you dare overdose again._"

"I won't remember, how will your warning stick?" Sherlock looks down at his saviour, and the light leans up to kiss him softly.

Sherlock wakes with the ghost impression of a kiss and his brother glaring at him. He's been moved to a hospital, and the fluorescent light above is blinding. He turns to glare at his brother in return, and the dream fades away as they argue. Sherlock never overdoses again.

—

John Watson is a soldier, returned from Afghanistan, with a brother who has a drinking problem, a psychosomatic limp, a doctor trained at Bart's, and quite possibly a potential flatmate. Sherlock sees all of this, easily. None of that really makes him aware of the fact that he wants to smile and wink as he rushes out of the lab to do what he does best.

But then, he doesn't remember that the light had John's face. He doesn't remember that, until a gun is fired and the man who fired it is standing unobtrusively behind a police line looking for him.


	2. Put Me in Your Hands

Title: Put Me in Your Hands

Words: 765

Spoilers: Vague ones?

TW: mentions of... torture? Not quite, but possibly concerning imagery.

Author's Notes: Again, studying the character. Sherlock's turn, this time. I imagine he talks to himself in his mind via second person. Always referring to himself as "you", instead of thinking in terms of "I". His mind is odd to me, that way. But I have a lot of personal ideas about this Sherlock. This is just me pretty much thinking on paper for him, because sometimes he'll sit there and wonder how John even functions in his life.

* * *

John takes you, everything you've been in your isolation, and rips it to shreds. At first, it was almost like he stuck meat hooks under your skin and pulled until the flesh ripped with a wet tearing noise that you're all too capable of imagining. You didn't go willingly, of course. You screamed and fought against his grip, and you hated him for not knowing what he was doing to you the longer you two were together.

But time shortened the distance, and soon it wasn't torture. It was John stitching you together while you realized that you'd always been broken. An imitation of complete that he fixed with the patience of someone who knew how to empathize, truly empathize, and have it cost nothing to do so! That thought alone made you spend many a night staring at the ceiling as you thought. As you dove straight down to the depths of your mind, where all was silent and easy to manage.

There was the mind palace, and then there was going Underneath. Underneath was where time completely stopped for you, where outside factors never touched you. It was the last safe haven of your mind. A perfect place to contemplate the effect John Watson had on you.

And oh, does he affect you! Not that you have a name to give what he does to you, exactly. It's hard to quantify. Somewhere, along the way, Sherlock Holmes and John Watson became "Sherlock and John", and you weren't aware of it until a while after it happened. He remains steady in this odd bond, like he doesn't know it exists. you've even tested the extents of this bond (which you tentatively call friendship, even as the word feels lacking) with fire and rage and gunshots. He gets frustrated-angry-annoyed-resigned on the surface, but you remain connected. A problem without a solution or reason isn't worth your time, but John is proving to be this fascinating design hidden away in normality. He wears normal like jumpers and worn jeans as if he himself is normal. Both of you know he's not.

What you wouldn't give to be able to take him apart, piece by piece, to find that spark that keeps you close to him! It wouldn't be torture, no. You don't want to hurt him, or kill him. But you wish people were more like machines, if only so you could take them apart and put them together again in different ways. Not John, though; John has to be put together properly. In the end, if he were able to be dismantled, you suppose you'd never actually get around to dismantling him in full. All the clockwork of his mind-heart-body-soul-personality would be too complex, even for you. One wrong gear in the wrong place and you would have a new person. The point is that you want to examine him, top to bottom, inside and out, looking for how he works.

John is the sum of his parts. You know his limp is gone, but it still makes up who he is now. His Army, his Doctor, his limp, his Adrenaline addiction. That's just like yours, really; the adrenaline is better than drugs, when you can get a true kick.

John smooths out your rough patches. When you feel like drugs would be your only reprieve, he comes along and does exactly what you need to stay away. It's impossible, but it happens. He just looks at you, and you know you won't touch them and lose everything you've worked for. Music-cases-puzzles would be gone, again. You know that, but John's much better at keeping you convinced of that.

John is necessary. He's been shaping you, without you realising it. He's been working at the rough patches of you, like a true artisan, and smoothing them out. An unrefined, but no less brilliant Sherlock was at the other end of the time of your meeting John. When you look back at him, you're surprised that you could be so stupid.  
(Of course you can be; growth renders your previous iteration useless, so of course they're stupid when you look back at them.)

John's smoothed you out, into a more human-shaped statue. The rough edges went in, but not too much. He knows you like rough edges. But the ones he leaves are just enough to keep your self-image while he makes subtle changes to the rest of you. In another year, you wonder what you'll be like.

John is necessary, like air and sustenance. You're satisfied that you're going to keep him, no matter what.


	3. A Dark-Lit Place

Title: A Dark-Lit Place

Words: 557

Spoilers: S1

Author's notes: I just was listening to "Paralyzer", and this happened. Character study for myself about why John stays with and feels for Sherlock. Character interpretation, if you will. This is what happens when you RP

* * *

Sherlock puts air into empty spaces that I wasn't aware were empty. I can catch my breath, after so long of feeling like I was drowning under the stress of PTSD, of that damned limp, the aching shoulder (the betrayal that went with it), and everything else. Everything.

Sherlock Holmes is darkness and illuminating at the same time. I can't begin to say how much I need that.

It's odd to admit that. One isn't supposed to admit to a contradiction that's complete truth. Not to mention, the odd social taboo of liking Sherlock Holmes. He grates against people, makes them want to hurt him for his whip-like tongue and fencer's wit. He throws around his intelligence like a weapon, and it strikes like a white-hot line of metal against your skin, mind, ego, until you're aching.

I ache for a different reason.

I've got the patience to deal with a child who's been wronged in the world. Whatever snarling creature stands before me, I can see that they've got a buried past of mistreatment. I should say "whether or not", but more often than not, those wild people haven't gotten love in their lives. The easy explanation is that I love Sherlock.  
But that's also the complex explanation.

He makes me move again. I used to be in time, before I met him. I had wounds, both real and in my mind, that held me back from following time. If I was wearing cement shoes and standing at the bottom of a lake before, living with Sherlock has me running across the ocean during a storm. Everything is in motion, even during his static black moods.

I don't stay because he makes me move. That's not why I say I love Sherlock Holmes.

He's endlessly complex to me, just as I'm probably achingly simple to him. I know people are simple until they're complex, like they don't properly exist in three dimensions, but Sherlock is this multifaceted intricacy of planes and reflections which I can never see enough of. While I look, something new always presents itself.  
That is why I keep coming back. He says conductor of light, but I say light in a dark room. I don't presume to be terribly essential, in that I could probably be replaced by some other, more quick-witted fool. But what he and I do together is something incredible. We're on the battlefield, but it's not the simple one of shooting and hiding that I remember.

No, London is a monster, and we're the ones traversing its labyrinths as we search out its weapons. I'm the shield to Sherlock's sword, and that's fine with me. This relationship between us is mutually beneficial, after all. I'm staying alive, and he's being protected. As much as I hate to admit it to myself, I don't think I could ever leave. His game, Sherlock's game, drags you in and holds you by the throat until you stay of your own will. Most people don't give him the chance to get a grip on them.  
I did. Whether or not that's good or bad remains to be seen.


End file.
